The hospital makes mistake and suffers the patient. Why is hospitals' negligence and their staff's mistakes becoming so common these days?

The recent sufferers of this intolerable behavior of hospitals are an Otago mother and her son. The hospital in talks is Lakes District Hospital and its staff, which mistake brain injury for drunkenness.

The incidence occurred when Mrs. Cottier admitted her son Mr. Alex Cottier, 21, to the Lakes District Hospital after he vomited and collapsed during the national rugby sevens tournament that was held in Queenstown in January.

Alex suddenly started vomiting and then collapsed when he was participating in the tournament with his mates. He was immediately taken to the hospital for his condition but the hospital staff wrongly assumed the man's unconscious state as a result of heavy drinking rather than giving it a thought that it could be a life-threatening brain injury, which was actually the main reason of his collapse.

Alex and his mother, Mrs. Vanessa, are really disturbed with the hospital staff's negligence and are now putting their efforts to get an answer from the hospital as why did the professional got his son's condition wrong.

They are insisting the hospital authorities to give a review of the hospital process and a reassurance that the facility will introduce changes to tackle any such situation.

"I want them to acknowledge they stuffed up - I want them to learn from their mistakes", Mrs. Cottier had said yesterday.

She added that her son collapsed not because of the four standard beers he had drunk that afternoon but he actually suffered a rare and potentially fatal brain-bleed i. e. an arteriovenous malformation.

The cause of his collapse got clear when a CT scan was performed over his head at Invercargill hospital and detected bleeding on the brain. He was immediately flown after 30 minutes to Dunedin Hospital for another CT scan and neurosurgery.